johnwells

Abby  Lockhart has become the new Mark Greene.

As fans of the long-running ER know, Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards) had some of the worst luck and unhappiness in the emergency room staff of County General. First, his wife leaves him, then he gets beaten up in the ER bathroom by a unknown assailant. Both his mother and father die in the same year, he's diagnosed with a brain tumor (which was successfully removed), his daughter feeds his newborn child Escasty, his brain tumor comes back, and he dies while in Hawaii. Needless to say, the man had no luck.

And now Abby (Maura Tierney) looks like she's wearing the albatross around her neck. Well, actually, she's been wearing it for several seasons now. It began when she was kicked out of medical school after her ex-husband failed to pay her tuition. Then, she had a rough set of relationships with Doctors Luka Kovac and John Carter. Her bi-polar mother stop taking her meds and her brother was diagnosed with the same mental disease as her mother. Last season she was kidnapped by a drug dealer who wanted Abby to treat an injured comrade.

I actually thought that the show should have done this a few seasons ago, during the debate between President Bartlett and Governor Richie. According to next week's TV Guide, The West Wing is thinking about doing a live debate between the characters played by Jimmy Smits and Alda, to air during the November sweeps. I think this is a fantastic idea. A debate scenario just screams to be shown live, with that "live" look instead of the filmed look (whenever a TV show has a scene that is supposed to be a live TV show, it never looks real). It would not only be exciting, it would give the show the gravitas and buzz it's been lacking for the past two years.